1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of computer systems. More specifically, the present invention relates to the art of ensuring feature and communicating feature settings between processors and motherboards.
2. Background Information
Microprocessors and related device technologies are continuing to advance at an ever increasing pace. From the processor and device manufacturers' perspective, the marketplace must be able to absorb these advances in technology as advancements are made. One hurdle to this absorption is the worry of equipment obsolescence. Before making investments into equipment, businesses and consumers want to know that there are migration paths for them to upgrade in an orderly manner, and preferably at times that are most advantages for them (driven by their needs, and not "forced" upon them by the equipment manufacturers). Thus, compatibility between different generations of components/equipment is an important goal to strive for. The increasing pace of technological advancement has made the achievement of this goal even more important.
Conventionally, different sockets, slots, form factors, and/or mechanical keying are employed to ensure that only compatible processors and devices will be used together. Additionally, manual "switches", such as jumpers would be employed to indicate the features and/or feature settings supported. These conventional approaches to ensure compatibility and communicate features/feature settings suffer a number of disadvantages. First, approaches that use different sockets, etc. are costly. Multiple parts have to be manufactured, maintained, and tracked. Second, approaches that use manual "switches" are error-prone. Thus, a more cost effective and less error-prone approach to ensure feature compatibility and communicate feature settings between processors and motherboards is needed.